This letter was in today's post to ARM (full text reproduced):

"Dear ARM

In your May 02 information newsletter you kindly indicated my success on the Isle of Wight in having a metric distance sign removed by the Council.

"I am very pleased to report that I have again succeeded in the replacement of metric signs ('500m') by '550 yards' signs. This took place after protracted correspondence with the Isle of Wight Council. The locality is on the Ventnor/St. Lawrence Road (both ways) a little past the Botanical Gardens.

"May I be described again as an 'Isle of Wight activist'!

"I look forward to reading the next newsletter (*).

"Yours sincerely, D.G."

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The above reported demetrications have been logged as 1,914 and 1,915 on ARM's national list.

Issue 4 of 'The Big Red Scissors', ARM's newsletter, titled: 'A Season of Victories', is now available and can be e-mailed to you on request

May one ask how this total of 1915 is arrived at. Does it count all signs that have been demetricated by whatever means, or does it exclude those that have been so by direct action.

ANS.

Those that have been demetricated *by any means*. However, certain minor amendments like car park barrier heights are excluded, so the full total is around 2,000.

Given time, an analysis could establish what numbers have been demetricated by direct action and which have been achieved e.g. by letter-writing.

I think the direct action percentage would be around 75%

Thank you Tony for the details above.

I would like to clarify if I may the general strategy of ARM.

Is direct action a last resort? Is it generally the case that ARM writes letters in an effort to persuade before direct action is taken?

Our general policy is to write to a local authority or organisation informing them that their sign(s) is/are illegal, and only to act when it is clear they will not comply or are indifferent about *when* they will comply.

I would also state that in all cases where a sign has been removed, the local authority concerned is notified and offered the return of their signs. The return of signs has been requested several times and on those occasions the signs have been returned, though with the illegal distance removed before return - and usually with a message taped to the sign warning te authority not to break the law again.

Mind you, since every local authority Chief Executive in the country was reminded by the Secretary of State for Transport on 16 July this year that metric distance signs were illegal, and in view of the publicity there has been in national and local newspapers and professional magazines like 'The Surveyor' on the subject, no local authority now has any real excuse for ever erecting a metric distance sign